valent error, as indispensable to giving a true impression of the character, ability, and principal lifework of the subject of this memoir.

The enemy contemplated attack on the morning of the 2d, on the right and on the left. The Federal army contemplated making a right attack. Its left was guarded as well as concentration at the moment of its intended right attack permitted. That is, its left was believed to be properly guarded, for who could have known that Sickles would not occupy his designated post? The right attack, for which troops had been massed, was about to be delivered, when further reconnoissance decided against it. Then the masses on the right were lessened by detachments sent towards the left. The intention to make an attack on the right had been relinquished about 10 A.M., upon the report of Warren and Slocum as to the result of the reconnoissance of the ground there. Between 3 and 4 P.M. General Meade, after having ordered the Fifth Corps to march to the left, and passed with Warren and other officers in that direction, saw there to his astonishment that Sickles was no longer in the position assigned him, but that he had advanced his line of battle to the subordinate ridge previously described, where it lay exposed to attack on both of its flanks completely in the air. Hence the battle that ensued was on Sickles's plan, not on General Meade's, and all that remained for General Meade to do was what he did, to accept the situation, to meet what there was no time to rectify, to retrieve what might be possible of the free gift that Sickles had made to disaster. There can be no doubt that Sickles received, on the morning of the 2d of July, the order to occupy the line in continuation of that held to the left by Hancock, the line occupied by Geary before he was withdrawn to the right preparatory to the attack intended at first to be made from that direction. It was shown in the last

chapter that Hancock had ordered Geary to extend the line of battle from his left to and inclusive of the Round Tops, that Geary had, in obedience to that order, taken up a line; and as Hancock also testifies that General Meade ordered Sickles, on the morning of the 2d, to hold the line that Geary had occupied, it is clear that he knew where it was intended to station him; and as Hancock, who testifies as to his having been in position, was close by, that he, in the first instance, must, at least in a general way, have taken up the position defined by orders. Soon after six o'clock in the morning of the next day, the 2d of July, Captain (now Colonel) Meade,* of the commanding-general's staff, carried from him a communication to Sickles, notifying him of the locality of headquarters, inquiring if his troops were yet in position, and if he had anything of moment to report. Upon Captain Meade's arrival on the ground and ascertainment that General Sickles was resting after his night march, he transmitted the communication to him through the medium of Captain Randolph, of his staff, receiving in reply the information that General Sickles was doubtful where to go. This response evidently made General Meade anxious, for upon the return of his aide with it, he despatched him forthwith to Sickles to impress upon him the urgency of getting his troops at once into position. It was about seven o'clock when, in reply to this second message of the commanding-general, General Sickles, then about to mount, surrounded by his staff, already in the saddle, said, with reference to the renewal of the commanding-general's orders as to the position to be taken, that he was then moving into position. About eleven o'clock General Sickles presented himself at headquarters, and the commanding-general there

* Deceased since these lines were indited, which had been verified by Colonel Meade in the form of the written statement herein given regarding his connection as aide-de-camp with this affair.

told him that he was to occupy, and pointed out in the distance the position in which Hancock had placed Geary on the preceding evening. To this Sickles said that, as far as he could make out, Geary had had no decided position. With General Meade's final word to him, that he was at liberty to occupy in his own manner the ground designated, within the general scope of his instructions, Sickles departed, the commanding-general allowing Hunt to accompany him to examine the ground to the left and select positions for artillery.

General Meade learned, after the war, from Geary, a circumstance which points to Sickles's having from the first intended not to occupy the position designated, for General Geary then told General Meade that, when he received the order notifying him that he would be relieved by the Third Corps, he sent an aide to General Sickles to communicate to him information as to the great importance of Round Top, and to request that he would send a member of his staff to view the ground and occupy it with troops. Nothing, however, he said, came of his action but a reply from General Sickles that the matter would be attended to in due time, when, after waiting as long as he could on the ground, in the hope that he should see the arrival of officers or troops, he was obliged to leave it in fulfilment of his own instructions from General Meade.

General Hunt, chief of artillery of the Army of the Potomac, gives, in one of his articles in the Century Magazine, and in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, a circumstantial account of what occurred before, at the time of, and after General Meade's instructing him to examine the ground to the left. The gist of this, coupled with General Meade's own account to that Committee, is, that upon his returning to headquarters from an inspection of the lines for general artillery purposes, he